January 2020 Grocery Challenge

[Deleted User]

Done my first shop of my new month today (starts on 25th as that s OHs payday) and did a good stock up of various items. Total spent was £46.43 out of £130.

We were given a voucher in Lidl for £5 off a £25 spend so we'll use this next week.

jam2019

One final shop for January at £2.66 - milk, apples, pears, and a frankly enormous sweet potato. The scales in asda were broken so that did involve a certain amount of "hmmm this feels like it weighs about as much as the pears so that's probably half a kg".
I'm going to make some bread later this week as well as sweet potato + mysterious orange root vegetable soup (a lesson in actually labeling things when I freeze them I suppose :doh:)

fairy3

Just checking in to report spends of £24.60 which includes several shops and some great YS hauls - Morri's and Cwarp both provided lots of meat and vegetable bargains. DD and DS1 and 2 also got paid so have contributed YS food so freezers are full. Will 'charge' my spends to value of food others have contributed as I use them to balance out costs.
Potential waste avoided when DS2 and DD decided they had other plans for evening meal so was left with excess veg and mash - froze the meat. Had made lentil dhal so modified by adding extra veg and topping with mash for spicy lentil shepherds pies, made two and froze.
Should only need milk and bread before end of month

Happy Saturday everyone

SummerDays

More spends to report since yesterday. A further £61.32 which includes £13 on alcohol, £4 on flowers for a birthday gift, meat for Sunday roast plus trimmings and packed lunch items for week ahead. Still planning A5da shop later this week for larger items but also two bottles of spirits as gifts.

Currently sitting at £345.51/£500 and will update signature shortly.

Feeling better to have logged everything (I think!) as a starter for the year to gradually bring spends down over coming months and also help me budget accordingly - I can see some gaps in how we currently plan for spending.

Thanks for all the inspiration

StripeyTightsSpottySocks

£70.84/£100 spent for Month so far Annual (27 Dec - 26 Dec) /£1,325 to be updated when declare for the month so as not to confuse myself cat food £71.33

Hello all. elsiepac i hope you're ok, i don't think i've seen you post for a while.

Spends of £3.42 for bread, fruit loaf, barm cakes and some treats as they were such a good price i stocked up

Possible spends tomorrow too - none of it needed until next week but if i get it tomorrow when i'm in the area where this shop is it will save me 2 hours next week going there as a special journey. We will see.

I made the barley casserole posted by elsiepac thank you for posting this. We've had a portion each and i've leftovers for 3 lunches :T

I also made a lentil and bean chilli and 5 portions of soup

All of this was mainly to use up some veg i had in that needed to be used before it was wasted

Meal planned for next week and enjoying using things up - it is a work in progress.

tessie_bear

im still jogging along...freezer is full bit too full really nust have a delve and see whats in there i seem to have lost track...i have just eaten a small bag i froze of the christmas turkey it was nice dh and son had fajitas which im not keen on so worked out well

jan is a long month will tot up totals at the end of the week

Islandmaid

:TGlad you liked it Pamdish :T

Spent £6 on a pie today, for tomorrow’s dinner, didn’t need to spend, but it’s supposed to be miserable weather tomorrow and wanted comfort food :cool:

We had a takeaway tonight, hubby paid, busy day with baby grandson

thriftwizard

I did manage to finish up quickly today (though we did have to stop three of our trainee weavers in their tracks so that we could sweep the floor before going home! Chuffed they were enjoying themselves so much) & swooped into w8rose on the way home. No bargains to be had in the way of Sunday roasts, needless to say, so £28 was spent on a couple of huge chickens (with giblets! Yaaay...) some veg & some cream for the dessert. There really shouldn't be anything else needed now until payday on Friday, but the bread & banana supply may not quite hold out if the troops get particularly hungry.

baggins11

Feeling a bit disheartened today. This is my first month of working out how much we spend and we have spent £704 so far this month!

When I did our budgeting I figured our month spend would be around £480. Although I have done a lot of bulk buying this month so my cupboards are full and it is difficult to work out how much is for the future but I estimate at least £100 worth is bulk buys.

Also I have baked fresh bread every day and made lunches for the family and that has saved probably around £120 this month. I have also started baking GF bread so will be saving lots going forward with this.

So if I take those things off I am at my £480 ish so it's not disastrous. The thing that worries me though is I thought I was really thrifty this month. Everything was cooked from scratch and packed lunches every day. We eat mainly veg meals and do not have many luxuries. I batch baked a months worth of biscuits and flapjacks and portioned up in the freezer for the kids to take every day. Our wastage this month has been minimal although I want to reduce that further. OH was doing dry January and I don't drink. We didn't buy toiletries or cleaning products this month as I bulk buy those.

We do have 2 hungry teenagers who do lots of sports so eat more than me but I just can't understand why some people manage on such low budgets. I am obviously doing something wrong.

Matron_Midge

Declaring January at £401.86/£400.
Really happy with that. I have also got the makings of 8 main meals ready to go so will just need fresh fruit, bread and milk. Hoping February is just as frugal.
See you on the February thread.